This morning we hosted a breakfast get-together with Tauranga City Council CEO Marty Grenfell and the wider TCC leadership team (pictured, with our CEO Matt).

Held at Trinity Wharf, the breakfast was an introduction to the team, to get to know the people behind some of the city’s biggest decisions and strategic plans, as well as hear first-hand from Marty the impacts on the council team following several controversial months. 

Our CEO Matt recaps the event and some of the feedback from attendees here. 

Despite the COVID-19 Alert Level 2 constraints, a high calibre of attendees joined the Chamber’s breakfast session with Tauranga City Council’s CEO Marty Grenfell on Thursday (September 3).

I believe it was a sign of respect at a human level, from one business leader to another, to understand how Marty is managing through several issues that he inherited.

The presentation was the most unified that I have seen from Tauranga City Council’s executive team in more than a decade.

Each executive spoke off the cuff, not knowing they were going to introduce themselves to an audience of Tauranga’s business leaders. Previously, you may have seen the executives speak off a script, if at all.

Marty was very upfront that the Council’s executive team faces a number of issues, which are primarily based on the community’s trust and confidence in the TCC brand.

From a business leader’s perspective, the team has identified the key issue (trust and confidence) and that the only real way to address it is to get out into the community.

He has clear expectations that any of his executive team must be comfortable and confident to act as the CEO if needed.

This is not a sponsored post, nor is the Chamber greasing up the Council. It’s more of a case study to demonstrate how a local leader is addressing a series of crises.

After the breakfast, an attendee told me that it set the tone for a separation between the politics and the people at the coal face, giving this particular attendee more confidence moving forward.

Another comment was that giving the whole executive team a face/voice is good as these are the people that most residents/businesses deal with – not the CEO.

Having a series of people who share the CEO’s vision is better than being led by a figurehead with a team that isn’t rallying behind them.